IN the wake of PM Theresa May's promise of a hard Brexit and with independence likely to be the word on everyone's lips at this week's SNP conference, Glasgow University's Professor of Government Jim Gallgher gives his opinion on how Scotland might fare after the UK splits from Europe.

Jim Gallagher is a professor of government at Glasgow University

SOMETIMES a bad mistake brings an unexpected opportunity.

Brexit is like that. A mistake, for sure, as turning our backs on our neighbours in Europe will likely make most people a bit poorer and the world a bit less stable.

But, as more people are starting to see, it gives opportunity for Scotland to get beyond the unending argument of Yes or No and get a constitutional deal most Scots will be comfortable with.

Let’s start with the mistake.

Three months after the EU referendum, we’re no clearer on what Brexit means.

None of the leavers ever had a plan. They just told everyone to vote against Europe.

But if all you do is reject something, who knows what you’ll get instead? You’re writing a blank cheque. And when you write a blank cheque, somebody else fills it in.

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So, Tory ministers are busy filling in that cheque, making up their Brexit plan as they go along.

We don’t know what they will opt for but most likely it will be something a majority would have voted against, given the chance.

After all, they promised we’d be able to stay in the European single market. But the Government are now walking away from it, so as to control immigration. So much for referendums being democratic.

Brexit has divided Britain with nearly half the country – including Scotland, Northern Ireland and London – resentfully on the losing side.

Referendums polarise issues, and people. I suspect that’s why most Scots don’t think the right response to Brexit is another independence referendum. It could leave us in an even more unstable and uncertain position than Britain is in today and, whatever the result, it would still leave Scotland split down the middle.

That’s what “winner takes all” referendums do – divide people.

Instead of dividing the country, governments should be looking for ways to give most people something they want.

Nicola Sturgeon will address plans for a second referendum at the SNP conference today (Image: Getty)

It’s much better if most people are happy with something rather than have half of us triumphant and the other half bitter and resentful.

It’s not too late for the Conservative Government to do that over Europe.

They could keep Britain in the single market but it looks like they’ll refuse to compromise.

There’s still the chance of a better deal for Scotland. Not just a European deal but one that will put the tired arguments about independence or union in a new light.

Leaving Europe could give new, confederal arrangements for Scotland and the UK. Important new powers are coming back from Brussels to Britain and they will be shared between London and Edinburgh, and Cardiff and Belfast, too. All of the UK’s governments will become more powerful.

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For Scotland- with imagination, courage and generosity on both sides there’s room for a deal that gives both nationalists and unionists most of what they want from the constitution.

This isn’t just a pipe dream. The weather in Scottish politics is changing. Senior and respected nationalists are saying it's time for something different. They’re right. And it’s not just that independence would be a much harder sell this time, though it would be.

The problem is about referendums. We can’t rerun 2014. If a referendum didn’t settle the matter last time, why would it do so next time?

So, instead of having constitutional groundhog day with the same old arguments trotted out again, only more so, we should be looking for a new way forward, one that gives both sides something of what they want.

The changes that follow Brexit make that possible.

The Brexit vote split the country in half as 51.9 per cent voted leave

In a paper from Oxford University today, I’ve published detailed plans. The Scottish Government should have new powers over things such as agriculture, fisheries and the environment, independent of the UK but cooperating with it as equals.

There is scope for the UK to offer more. Why shouldn’t the Scottish Government be a bit more like an independent state over EU relations? There’s no reason why they shouldn’t do deals with the EU in areas such as university studentships and research, or access to health services.

Unexpectedly, there could even be the chance for Scotland to manage its own EU migration.

It looks like the UK Government won’t agree to free movement of labour with Europe. But they probably won’t try to stop European people getting across the UK border. They’ll just stop them taking jobs, or settling down without permission once they are already here.

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So, EU migration will be managed locally and, as a result, there’s room for Scotland to take a different approach and for it to be run by the Scottish Government. Because the EU won’t be there to set the rules in this and other areas, the Scottish Government, and those in Northern Ireland and Wales, will have more clout than they do today.

The different governments will be forced to work together in ways they never have before now, in a genuine partnership of equals. On top of all the powers over tax and welfare already coming to Holyrood, this is beginning to sound like a quite different UK.

People often talk about federalism. We’re already going beyond that.

Britain could become a sort of confederation. Different nations of different sizes, working together in things that matter for everyone – such as running the economy, providing decent pensions and welfare but with the small nations able to pursue their own priorities and identities independently.

Big changes to Scotland-UK relations are inevitable after Brexit. Negotiations have even started. There are people on both sides who are ready to think about something more and something new.

Gordon Brown wants “a more federal arrangement”. Thoughtful nationalists are speculating about “neo-independence”. But it would need politicians and governments on both sides to take a big, generous, leap of the imagination.

Nationalists would have to lay aside the idea of rerunning the referendum. They’ve seen from Brexit that referendums maybe aren’t so democratic after all.

The dream of independence doesn’t have to die but it’s not for this generation. In return, the UK Government would have to be more open and be prepared to take big risks.

Leave behind the divisions of 2014, give most people in Scotland most of what they want in a confederal deal after years of constitutional wrangling. That’s worth taking risks for.